Examining the Quality of Evolution Frameworks and Metamodeling Paradigms of Information Systems Development Methodologies

Information systems development methodologies and associated CASE tools have been considered cornerstones for building quality into an information system. The construction and evaluation of methodologies are usually carried out by evaluation frameworks and metamodels, both considered as meta-methodologies. This chapter investigates and reviews representative metamodels and evaluation frameworks for assessing the capability of methodologies to contribute to high-quality outcomes. It presents a summary of their quality features, strengths, and weaknesses. The chapter ultimately leads to a comparison and discussion of the functional and formal quality properties that traditional meta-methodologies and method evaluation paradigms offer. The discussion emphasizes the limitations of methods and metamethods used to model and evaluate software quality properties, such as computability and implementability, testing, dynamic semantics capture, and people’s involvement. This analysis, along with the comparison of the philosophy, assumptions, and quality perceptions of different process methods used in information systems development, provides the basis for recommendations about the need for future research in this area.